This book presents applications of the Analytic Hierarchy Process developed by Thomas L. Saaty to deal with unstructured decision problems, together with case histories developed by him and in collaboration with others in areas of current societal concern. Its purpose is to provide the reader with examples of how to deal with unstructured problems, particularly ones involving socio economic and political issues with qualitative and intangible factors. These examples show how to use judgment and experience to analyze a com plex decision problem by combining its qualitative and quantitative aspects in a single framework and generating a set of priorities for alternative courses of action. The process has inherent flexibilities in structuring a problem and in taking diverse judgments from people, whether singly, in a group working together, or by questionnaire. Decisionmakers will profit from this approach. It makes accessible to them a framework for understanding the complexity of the system they are in as it impinges on the surrounding environment. To deal with complexity, we must first understand it. Systems thinking is necessary if all the important factors are to be considered. Complex systems problems can challenge and tax our logical capability to fully understand their causes and the consequences of any action we may take to solve them. Neverthe less, in time their effects on us tend to become better known than their causes.

This book is about how to make decisions using the Analytic Hierarchy Process. The basics of the theory are described in a clear, non-technical manner with many examples. It is suitable for business leaders and also is probably the best book for introducing the AHP to students at the college and graduate level. In this fifth printing of the book the reader will find a new appendix containing real-life applications that validate the use of the fundamental scale of the AHP.

This monograph is a defence of the Fregean take on logic. The author argues that Frege ́s projects, in logic and philosophy of language, are essentially connected and that the formalist shift produced by the work of Peano, Boole and Schroeder and continued by Hilbert and Tarski is completely alien to Frege's approach in the Begriffsschrift. A central thesis of the book is that judgeable contents, i.e. propositions, are the primary bearers of logical properties, which makes logic embedded in our conceptual system. This approach allows coherent and correct definitions of logical constants, logical consequence, and truth and connects their use to the practices of rational agents in science and everyday life.

With examples ranging from timbering and fishing to automobility and meat production, Princen shows that sufficiency is perfectly sensible and yet absolutely contrary to modern society's dominant principle, efficiency. He argues that seeking enough when more is possible is both intuitive and rational - personally, organisationally and ecologically rational. And under global ecological constraint, it is ethical. Over the long term, an economy - indeed a society--cannot operate as if there's never enough and never too much.

Autonomy is the central idea of modern practical philosophy. Understood as self-legislation, autonomy seems to require that the validity of norms depends on recognition, namely, that their addressees, being autonomous agents, recognise these norms to be valid. But how can one be bound by norms whose validity depends on their being recognised as valid by their addressees? The questions of how autonomous morality and, on this basis, the authoritative character of law can be understood, present persistent puzzles that have been widely discussed, but still await a satisfactory solution. This book presents an analysis of the idea of autonomy as self-legislation and its consequences for law and morality. It links the idea of autonomy with the idea of the balancing of normative arguments, develops a notion of normative arguments as distinct from normative judgements and statements and explains claims to correctness and objectivity that are found in normative discourse. Thus, a 'logic of autonomy' emerges, and it is pervasive in normative reasoning. It connects theses regarding the logic of norms, the structure of balancing, human and fundamental rights, legal validity, legal interpretation, and the relations among legal systems, offering a theory of central elements of normative argumentation, a theory that is undergirded by the mutual relations that exist between and among its parts as well as through the relations that it bears to other theories. Moreover, it offers an alternative to Kantian notions of autonomy and provides solutions to problems that other theories have failed to master.

This book describes RTL design, synthesis, and timing closure strategies for SOC blocks. It covers high-level RTL design scenarios and challenges for SOC design. The book gives practical information on the issues in SOC and ASIC prototyping using modern high-density FPGAs. The book covers SOC performance improvement techniques, testing, and system-level verification. The book also describes the modern Xilinx FPGA architecture and their use in SOC prototyping. The book covers the Synopsys DC, PT commands, and use of them to constraint and to optimize SOC design. The contents of this book will be of use to students, professionals, and hobbyists alike.